Mass mailing with average grades Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have a few questions about mass mailing. I have searched this site for an answer, but couldn't find what I was looking for. I am at a t30 with slightly above median grades. I am aware and prepared that I am likely going to strike out at OCI. I have started to compile a list of firms to mass mail to.

1. Since my schools median is low, should I mention on my resume that it is top 50 percent (I didn't do this on my oci resume) so that it is not misconstrued as being even worse than it is?
2. Email only? Put the cover letter in body of email or attachment or both? All one attachment? Include writing sample?
3. When applying to school's primary market, is it necessary to discuss ties?
4. Mass mail employers coming to OCI that I bid on? Mass mail employers coming to OCI that I did not bid on?

[ResIpsa21]

Unsolicited advice -- mass mailing is great and absolutely worth your time, but also focus on networking. It sounds like you have at least a few firms in your school's primary market, so spend some time networking the hell out of them. Since everyone these days is into mass mailing, your (less than stellar) resume will be compared against a lot of better looking ones. Just like you would in OCI, you need to get law firms to see past your paper credentials. OCI is good, mass mailing is better, networking is by far and away the best.

Answers to your questions --

1) Is there an official designation from your school for "Top 50%" or do you just happen to know that your GPA is above the school's median? Do you have an exact class rank? If there's something official/formal that you can put on your resume, by all means go for it. If you're drawing your own conclusion based on your GPA and the school's median, don't. Also, be aware that law firms see so many resumes from every Top 50 law school, they essentially already know what your GPA means (and they're comparing it to all of the other students from your school too).

2) Email only. Write a very brief message in the body that sounds like "Dear Recruiter, My name is Student and I am writing to apply for a 2015 summer associate position at Howrey & LeBoeuf LLP. You will find my cover letter, resume, and writing sample attached to this e-mail. Please do not hesitate to contact me at this e-mail address or at 555-555-5555 if you need any further information. Thank you for your consideration." Attach separate PDFs.

3) It's not necessary, but it does help to have a sentence in your cover letter saying that you intend to practice law in that market upon graduation. If you have any real ties (family, spouse, residence before law school, etc.) then that's worth mentioning too (again, in one sentence).

4) Definitely mass mail firms that you did NOT bid on at OCI. Some firms might ding you for not bidding through OCI (they'll think you're not serious about them if they didn't make your bid list, which is probably true) but it can't hurt to try. Don't mass mail firms that you DID bid on, at least until after you find out about where you got screeners. If you get rejected or picked as an alternate, you can mass mail with a note stating that you did not have an opportunity to interview with the firm at OCI but you're particularly interested in them because of X, and you'd appreciate the chance to speak with someone about your interests and experience. Low likelihood of success, but nothing to lose.

[Anonymous User]

Unsolicited advice -- mass mailing is great and absolutely worth your time, but also focus on networking. It sounds like you have at least a few firms in your school's primary market, so spend some time networking the hell out of them. Since everyone these days is into mass mailing, your (less than stellar) resume will be compared against a lot of better looking ones. Just like you would in OCI, you need to get law firms to see past your paper credentials. OCI is good, mass mailing is better, networking is by far and away the best.

Answers to your questions --

1) Is there an official designation from your school for "Top 50%" or do you just happen to know that your GPA is above the school's median? Do you have an exact class rank? If there's something official/formal that you can put on your resume, by all means go for it. If you're drawing your own conclusion based on your GPA and the school's median, don't. Also, be aware that law firms see so many resumes from every Top 50 law school, they essentially already know what your GPA means (and they're comparing it to all of the other students from your school too).

2) Email only. Write a very brief message in the body that sounds like "Dear Recruiter, My name is Student and I am writing to apply for a 2015 summer associate position at Howrey & LeBoeuf LLP. You will find my cover letter, resume, and writing sample attached to this e-mail. Please do not hesitate to contact me at this e-mail address or at 555-555-5555 if you need any further information. Thank you for your consideration." Attach separate PDFs.

3) It's not necessary, but it does help to have a sentence in your cover letter saying that you intend to practice law in that market upon graduation. If you have any real ties (family, spouse, residence before law school, etc.) then that's worth mentioning too (again, in one sentence).

4) Definitely mass mail firms that you did NOT bid on at OCI. Some firms might ding you for not bidding through OCI (they'll think you're not serious about them if they didn't make your bid list, which is probably true) but it can't hurt to try. Don't mass mail firms that you DID bid on, at least until after you find out about where you got screeners. If you get rejected or picked as an alternate, you can mass mail with a note stating that you did not have an opportunity to interview with the firm at OCI but you're particularly interested in them because of X, and you'd appreciate the chance to speak with someone about your interests and experience. Low likelihood of success, but nothing to lose.

Thanks for the response, I agree with your networking advice. I landed my 1L internship(a boutique firm) through networking and it has been somewhat successful. I think I would be able to turn it into full time employment, but I would like to test the water and maybe come back following 2nd year. As for number 1) The school does give top 10, 25, third, and top 50 percent designations. For example top 50 percent is 3.28 and I have a 3.29. So I am barely above median. I didn't add this on my resume for OCI since I figured they would know the schools median and I didn't want it to draw attention to my barely above median gpa.

[ResIpsa21]

Thanks for the response, I agree with your networking advice. I landed my 1L internship(a boutique firm) through networking and it has been somewhat successful. I think I would be able to turn it into full time employment, but I would like to test the water and maybe come back following 2nd year. As for number 1) The school does give top 10, 25, third, and top 50 percent designations. For example top 50 percent is 3.28 and I have a 3.29. So I am barely above median. I didn't add this on my resume for OCI since I figured they would know the schools median and I didn't want it to draw attention to my barely above median gpa.

Got it. I would go ahead and put the Top 50% designation on your resume, but I don't think it's make or break. Your boutique firm sounds like a great backup option if OCI doesn't work out -- keep those contacts up. Good luck!

[shock259]

1. I wouldn't mention it. The firm is going to know any way.

2. Yes, email only. Do not mail things to firms.

People have different opinions on how to structure the email. Personally, when I mass mailed, I made a Word doc with a general cover letter. I then used mail merge to put the firm name, recruiter, address, etc. in the proper places in the letter. I made each letter into a separate PDF for each firm, then added my resume and transcript to the this PDF. So the end result was 1 PDF, addressed to each firm individually, which contained a cover letter, resume, and transcript.

I then wrote a super brief email to the recruiter. It said something like:

"Dear X,

I am a rising second-year law student at X Law School and I am applying for a summer associate position with your firm. Please find
my cover letter, resume, and transcript attached.

Thank you for your consideration."

That said, I think putting the cover letter in the email body is credited too. My only thought with the attachment was that the recruiter was probably just going to print out my stuff and put it in a pile somewhere. So I might as well make it easy for them and put it all in one PDF.

3. Not necessary, IMO. But it probably wouldn't hurt if you have real ties.

4. Mass mail everyone. Many firms going to your OCI will just tell you to bid on them at OCI, but that's fine. No harm no foul. It's worth a shot.

[JCougar]

If you don't have good enough grades to get a job through OCI (which you don't), mass mailing is unlikely to help much. It's not that you shouldn't try it, because you need an "all of the above" approach, but it wouldn't shock me if you were to send out 1,000 resumes and receive no response.

The only people I know that actually got a job through mass mailing are people that had good enough grades to get at least a few OCI interviews, but didn't get an offer. With your grade situation, I would start looking at small local firms of 1-10 attorneys that you can clerk for during the school year and get some practical experience.

tl;dr version: If you're below firms' GPA cutoff, you're not getting an interview, period.

[TTRansfer]

I like to stick:

Cover letter
Resume
Grades
Writing sample

all into one PDF file (in that order). I think it makes shit a lot simpler for everyone involved.

[ResIpsa21]

JCougar is probably right, but don't be disheartened. It's worth a shot as long as you're realistic about the likely outcome (which it sounds like you totally are).

Speaking as a biglaw associate who will be interviewing for our summer program, I would recommend separate PDFs for your documents. The reason is that, with very few exceptions, nobody cares about anything but your resume. It's actually much more convenient to be able to print or forward the resume alone without having to extract it from a big PDF bundle. That said, it really doesn't matter in the end, nobody will be offered or dinged for this.